Don't just blame Vince, Mr. Powell

While John Powell's column on the problems with the WWF raises some good points, it is terribly one-sided and short-sighted. Calls
for Vince McMahon to "pass the torch" are not only premature, but absurd. Powell has neglected to take into account several
factors that are affecting the current poor showing from the WWF, and while a change on a large scale would be welcome -- and could
very well turn the promotion around -- calling for the head of the man that is very much responsible for creating the industry as we
know it would be cutting out the heart and soul of the WWF.

First of all, as has been demonstrated time and time again, wrestling is a cyclical business, and over the past 20 years it has hinged itself on the
fortunes and misfortunes of its leader, the WWF. The industry's previous swoon took place in the early '90s, fresh off a late
'80s boom period, the highlight of which saw Wrestlemania III pack a record-breaking 90,000-plus fans into the Pontiac Silverdome.
The swoon happened for a number of reasons: the WWF was rocked by a steroid scandal and an investigation by the U.S. federal
government. Vince McMahon, having to devote much of his time to staying out of jail, handed the reins over to others to run the WWF in his
stead. It turns out they didn't do a very good job -- storylines took sharp nosedives into oceans of illogic, the
"creative" staff came up with such winning ideas as Doink the Clown and Bob "Sparkplug" Holly, and the
product as a whole just wasn't that entertaining. Fans turned away from wrestling in droves; ratings plummeted, pay per view buy rates
dropped, house show attendance declined -- very similar to what's happening now. That's what happens when your
product isn't all that good: people don't buy it. But the important thing to remember is that they came back. Just as Vince
McMahon can't take all the credit for wrestling's recent boom -- increased competition from WCW or innovative ideas
from Vince Russo contributed, among other factors -- so too can he not take all the blame for its current funk.

What do you think?

We're going to run a special editorial this Thursday with nothing but reader responses to John Powell's editorial, and now Pete Nowak's Guest Column. Send in your thoughts to jpowell@canoe.ca.

There is also the notoriously fickle attention span of the television viewer, which is something Powell fails to acknowledge in his column. Very
few shows in the comparative history of television have been able to draw big ratings consistently over a sustained period of time. There are
the stalwarts that have had a devoted audience -- M*A*S*H*, Cheers, Seinfeld, X-Files, Simpsons, etc. -- but the vast majority
of programming has to compete for viewers, who tend to watch whatever is hot at the time. The WWF falls into this category, as do
flash-in-the-pan shows such as Survivor, Jerry Springer or even The Monkees -- they tend to enjoy a few years of huge success, then
they fade away. The nature of television is such that viewers will tune in to what they find fresh and new, and tune out once it's not so
fresh and new. This makes it especially difficult for the WWF, which somehow has to make 52 Raws and 52 Smackdowns a year interesting.

In the late '90s, the WWF reinvented itself and came up with something fresh and new, which led to the huge boom and popularity.
Now, well, the novelty has worn off and people are watching other programming. It's the nature of television. When the WWF does
something new and interesting, viewers will come back. To prophesize the demise of wrestling or the WWF at this point is not only alarmist,
but once again, it's also absurd.

Powell also apparently hasn't noticed that the economy in general is in the crapper. He cites such misleading facts as the WWF stock being rated a "hold."
Well, there aren't a whole lot of stocks out there with a "buy" rating, so the fact that the WWF has avoided a "sell" rating thus far -- despite the XFL
fiasco and the flopped WCW purchase -- is pretty amazing. In fact, the opposite is true; according to globeinvestor.com, a Canadian financial web
site, the consensus among analysts is that the WWF stock is actually a "buy." Companies everywhere -- including Quebecor, the company that owns CANOE.ca -- are laying people off left, right and centre, and all sorts of stocks are depressed. While hurrying to point out the negatives of the WWF's business,
Powell has neglected to point out some of the positives: many companies are posting losses and announcing big layoffs, while the WWF is still making a profit,
albeit a smaller one, and it has thus far avoided large staff cuts. Again, this is just short of miraculous considering the huge costs the WWF incurred in the past year
with the XFL folding and WCW acquisition, and considering the current economic malaise.

It's trendy right now to harp on Vince McMahon and the WWF, but the fact is, there are other forces at work that govern how
successful the promotion is at any given time. It's unfair to place full blame on a man whose track record as a businessman speaks for
itself. There are too many know-it-alls on the Internet who think they can run a billion-dollar company better than a man who created one, and
there are too many people who simply try to tear down what others have built.

Vince McMahon is not infallible, sometimes he gambles and
wins, and sometimes he loses. But you don't become a billionaire without knowing what you're doing, so he will eventually fix
what is broken with the WWF.

Is the WWF product stale? I agree with Powell -- yes it is. Does it need a big change or reinvention? Once again, yes. But I have more
faith in Vince McMahon correcting these problems than I do in armchair quarterbacks who do nothing but sit back and spew negativity in the
mistaken belief that they are somehow doing some kind of good.
Pete Nowak is from Toronto and can be emailed at petenowak@hotmail.com.